Shropshire Food Producer Wins National Award

Ludlow Food Centre has won a national award at the recent Foodex show held at Birmingham’s NEC.

The National Federation of Meat and Food Traders held their bi-annual awards event as part of the Foodex show with 80 butchers entering over 380 products in five categories.

The Ludlow Food Centre won the ‘National Supreme Product Champion’ award for their black pudding and a gold award for their Traditional Sausage.

Head butcher at the Food Centre, John Brereton, picked up the awards saying, "It is a great honour to win awards against this calibre of competition. At the Food Centre we take a great deal of pride in our work and it is nice to know that the products we are making are considered to be the highest quality."

The event has been held for 40 years and is the only one of its kind to see entries from all over the UK with all 4 countries being represented in one competition. Entries are only open to independent butchers and the competition has always tried to celebrate the quality of meat sold in British butcheries.

Graham Bidston, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders said, "When we started the competition 40 years ago there were 20,000 independent butchers but sadly there are barley 5000 left. The products are judged on originality, quality, cooking and above all taste so the judges have a hard decision to make and the winners should be proud of their achievement."

The Food Centre is part of the Earl of Plymouth’s Oakly Park Estate which borders the market town of Ludlow and is also home to the largest herd of Gloucester Old Spot pigs in the UK. Gloucester Old Spots are a rare breed variety and though the meat has a little more fat it was shown at the awards that the flavour is hard to beat. John says, "The Estate works hard to rear our Gloucesters and it is the quality of the meat that has helped us to win awards with our products. The recipes are long established but every year we make a few tweaks and changes and this year it has paid off."